2. Tigris and Euphrates River Dams Influence Islamic State Expansion
Conflicts over water have a long history. In 2014, a new analysis described the links between drought, climate change, water management, and the Syrian civil war. By the end of the year, the region’s major dams were targeted for control by the Islamic State (IS) and used as weapons to flood parts of Iraq and to divert water away from some communities for political purposes. IS forces near these dams were also targets of allied air strikes because of the dams’ strategic importance.

3. U.S.-China Climate Agreement Includes Water-Energy Provisions
On November 12, 2014, the President of the United States reached a momentous accord with the President of China to cap greenhouse gas emissions and do a whole lot more for Mother Earth and its human inhabitants. The agreement encourages collaboration between the world’s two largest economies to much more quickly put into place new tools, practices, and especially markets to contend with radically different ecological and economic conditions. The agreement includes two provisions to secure freshwater supplies in energy production. The two nations are 1) investing in research to improve efficiency and conservation in water supply for energy generation and 2) developing a carbon-sequestration demonstration project in China to put to good use the water that is displaced from deep beneath the surface during CO2 storage.

4. The U.S. Safe Drinking Water Act Turns 40 Amid Mounting Safety Lapses
In the year that the U.S. Safe Drinking Water Act turned 40, Toledo, Ohio, Charleston, West Virginia, and towns along North Carolina’s Dan River were the victims of pollution incidents that highlighted the continued challenges in safeguarding water supplies and protecting public health. Toledo shut down its water supply after poisonous algae toxins developed in Lake Erie. Charleston’s water supply was fouled by a chemical spill that prompted the Justice Department to indict the plant’s owners for water-quality violations and obstruction of justice. In North Carolina, a storage basin failure at a Duke Energy power plant sent more than 35,000 metric tons of coal ash, a noxious waste product, flowing into the Dan River, a drinking water source.

5. Evidence of the Link between Climate Change and Extreme Hydrologic Events Grows Stronger
The evidence of the links between climate change and extreme hydrologic events grew more powerful in 2014. A series of scientific reports addressed heat waves in Europe, coastal damages in the Eastern United States during extreme tides and storms, flooding in the UK from more intense rain storms, drastic loss of Arctic ice, and droughts in Australia and the Southwestern United States. Lloyd’s of Londonconcluded in May that the influence of rising sea levels increased the damages from Hurricane Sandy by $US 8 billion in New York alone. Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest city and located close to the water-rich Amazon Basin, suffered its worst drought.